The Human Cost of the Housing Emergency: Findings from Home Works #HomeWorks #ReportCard17 #ReportCard17

Steering Group Members Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) Barnardos Early Childhood Ireland Focus Ireland Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) Irish Primary Principals Network ISPCC Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice National Parents Council Post Primary Peter McVerry Trust Simon Communities of Ireland Society of St Vincent de Paul #HomeWorks

Rise in Child and Family Homelessness #HomeWorks

Quotes from Home Works “They probably didn’t go in about twice a week, and the school are asking why they are not there? So I told them, ‘I’m put in a position to either feed them or send them to school and I don’t have the money do so both’, so I chose to feed them and not send them to school (Elizabeth, aged 41).

Quotes from Home Works “He always had coughs and colds; they picked up everything in the hotel. So, like, every week there was a new sickness in the hotel, like somebody’s child had chicken pox and the whole hotel would get it. There was hand, foot and mouth, and there was loads of head lice going around; it was really bad”. (Susan, aged 25)

Quotes from Home Works When they had a holiday she was crying, I told her stop crying, she said, ‘No I am going to miss my teacher’, I said, ‘Don’t worry you are going back to the same teacher’. She needed to be there every day, she even got an award because she never missed school. Even though we are homeless, I take it as my job to get her there every day because when she is going to school she feels happy. (Antoinette, aged 28) I needed the crèche for him, he needed to get out of that room, it was so good for him but more torture for me because I had to walk around for three hours you know, but for Brian it was a big help. The teachers there knew what he liked, they had toys and they played with him, they would say, ‘Oh, Brian, he’s good at this, he loves the cars and the Lego’ and he did love that, just playing, he loved it and they loved him’. (Sally, aged 31)

Quotes from Home Works Her group of friends is much smaller now because she’s very, very embarrassed. She’s very shy and she wouldn’t let anybody know. She wouldn’t really tell any of her friends that we were homeless. (Margaret, aged 51) Their social experience of school: they become less sociable, more quiet and reserved, they can’t spend time hanging around after school, they don’t sit with their friends at lunch time because they may not have any lunch with them. (Teacher)

Quotes from Home Works I can’t even remember how the conversation started, and she opened up a little bit and then it was nearly like I’ve said too much and I didn’t want to push. And she said that she’s really lonely for this area where she is, misses her friends. She really misses not being able to play outside. I asked about the weekend and she said: ‘The only thing we really do is go to Aldi but I can’t play out the way I used to play’. She was allowed play outside the front street and she’s knock into different children in the class and she said all that’s gone and she’s really lonely for her friendships, for the independence that she had. (Teacher)

Thank you